The state itself has been, and rema

The state itself has been, and remains, a highly malleable and variable form of association. As Wolfgang Friedmann observed, “From the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, the national state, in many cases coalescing from the older and smaller entities of dukedoms, principalities, and city republics, became the sole source of legal power and the exclusive focus of political allegiance.” By recognizing the historical evolution and contingency of the state, we are able to recognize also that the evolution of forms of human association did not begin or end when the state was invented.